The volume of data accessible via computer networks in 2015 has been estimated to exceed one trillion gigabytes. Portions of that data describe various entities, including people, organizations (e.g., governmental organizations, corporations, etc.), or other entities. For example, one or more websites and/or social media profiles (collectively, “profiles”) accessible via the Internet can describe an entity.
To locate data describing an entity of interest, computer users can use a variety of software tools, including browsers and search engines. For example, people involved in the evaluation, hiring, and/or recruiting (collectively, “recruiters”) of employees can attempt to locate data that describe a candidate for a job by searching for a profile of the candidate on a website or on a social media platform (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.). After locating a profile of the candidate, the recruiter can attempt to locate additional profiles of the candidate on other websites or social media platforms to acquire additional information about the candidate. For example, the recruiter can manually traverse links between profiles (e.g., by following a hyperlink from a LinkedIn profile to a Twitter profile), or create a search string using data from the candidate's profile and input the search string into a search engine. In this way, a recruiter can compile an aggregate description of the candidate from multiple data sources.